Senate OKs bill on undetectable guns

Congress approved an extension of a 25-year-old gun safety law on Monday, hours before it was slated to expire at midnight.

The Senate adopted a House-passed 10-year extension of the Undetectable Firearms Act (UFA), sending the law to President Barack Obama’s desk. The legislation is the most prominent gun-related bill to clear Congress this year, as efforts to expand background checks failed in the Senate this spring.

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Even the UFA’s long-term extension did not come without controversy, as advocates of gun control pushed to update the law to prepare it for an era when 3-D printers are able to construct firearms entirely of plastic, save for a metal firing pin. Republicans and the NRA accepted an extension of UFA, but pushed back against legislation that would have required guns to have permanent metal pieces in them, intended to guard against the manufacture of arms on 3-D printers.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) attempted to pass an amended version of the House bill to close what he described as a dangerous loophole that allows plastic guns to be easily smuggled through metal detectors.

“Technology has advanced so not only are these guns real but they can be made so that the law that exists and expires tonight can be evaded,” Schumer said. “I haven’t heard one specific argument against our closing the loophole.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) objected to Schumer’s request — and the Senate instead picked up the clean House extension of the bill and passed it. Grassley said the Senate had not effectively probed the new technology through congressional hearings and described Schumer’s amendment as coming at the “eleventh hour.”

Schumer vowed to work with Grassley in the coming months to find a way to prevent the manufacture of undetectable guns with 3-D printers.

But Democrats aren’t expected to let up their push to update the law, arguing the future is now when it comes to making guns at home. Speaking on the Senate floor on Monday afternoon, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) urged the law to be improved upon, recounting the tale of journalists smuggling a plastic gun into Israel’s parliament and pointing it at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in July.

“It’s time that we recognize that the future is here. Plastic guns are real. And as we approach the one-year anniversary of the most horrific school shooting that this country has ever seen, it is critical for us to what we have many times before: Reauthorize and update the Undetectable Firearms Act,” Murphy said.

The Senate passed the extension of current law by unanimous consent and the House approved it by a voice vote, meaning that lawmakers were not required to go on the record in support or opposition to the legislation.